Category: Software Engineer life

The programming Editor is a Software Engineer’s best friend (quote from Brian Hsu!!) A software engineer spends most of his time in Editor to write codes (excluding the time we spend on Google and Stack Overflow, of course). So what Editor should you choose for your software engineer life?

Well … there is no real answer for that. You choose whatever you like and make the best use of it. Each Editor exists for a reason. If you can have the highest productivity using a certain Editor, then go for it!

From my previous post, you know I am going to a coding bootcamp called Hack Reactor. However, how do you find a right bootcamp that fits you? Before I applied to any bootcamp, I researched through Google and Quora to find people’s reviews about bootcamps. There are also websites that collect bootcamp information by city, focus, reviews, etc. Here are the websites I know: Bootcamp Finder, Bootcamper, Switch Up, Course Report. Jeff’s blog post, How to Compare Bootcamps, also helped me decide my list of bootcamps to apply.

I haven’t written any blog post for a while and now it’s 2015 already! I can’t believe time flies so fast!! There are lots of changes I faced in the end of 2014, and in 2015 I will have a totally different lifestyle.

The biggest change is I am going back to school…well sort of. It’s a coding school(bootcamp) called Hack Reactor. In the second half of 2014, I felt I wanted to learn programming in a more systematic way. Therefore, I researched all kinds of possibilities like CS master program, CS undergraduate, online certified classes, Udacity CS master program, etc. The biggest concern I had was the time it will take. Quitting my job to study 2~4 years seems a little terrifying for me. In addition, I want to learn while doing lots of practical projects. Some of the programs seemed as if they would only focus on the theory part.

As a self-taught software engineer, I know there are tons of room for me to improve. Therefore, I need to work hard each day to educate myself. The reality is, it’s very hard to study or work on my project after work. After several months of trial and error, I have found some ways to make progress each day. Here are my tips:

To be honest with you, I have a degree…but not in a computer science related area.

Even though I have a bachelor degree in Chemistry and master degree in Environmental Science, I didn’t take any computer science class at school. Each time I look into my past, I wonder why I didn’t take a computer science class when I had a chance. Well, I guess this is life! Computer science was here all the time, waiting for me to discover it…